New Drill Set: 2.1

After going to bed at 1am (post skate session), I was up at 6am yesterday, skating less than a half mile down the street to work on a tv show that rhymes with “Sleigh’s Slanatomy.” ABC Prospect studio. Favorite show to work on.

Long days, late tired sessions
Title says it all. Each night I cut into my sleep by a couple hours to go skating. I never really regret it, but I sure miss the sleep when I’m up before dawn to work. Since I can’t go back to irresponsible childhood, I’m pushing forward toward financial -and schedule- freedom.

On the grounds of ABC’s Prospect Studios, in Los Feliz (A few blocks east of Hollywood, up by the mountains). Perfect manual pad. Not happening right beside the security station. On the clock. Today.

New drill set
Felt I needed to make an adjustment to my skateboard drills. It was wonderful, I see progress, but it was again getting too long. Want more time for playing against curbs and trying even more new stuff. I just reduced each make amount down to only 2. Used to be 25 when I only knew 3 tricks back in March. Then it was 10. Then 3. Now 2. I think I have 21 tricks on this list.

Usually I hyperlink it, but for this first posting about Set 2.1, here’s the full deal. Everything in bold is new to the regiment, including the number of makes.

Drill set 2.1
Regular Ollies
2
Frontside 180 Ollies
2
Backside 180 Ollies
2
Nollies
2
Fakie Ollies
2
Backside Half-cabs
2
Frontside Half-cabs
2
Backside Popshovits
2
Frontside Popshovits
2
Kickflips
2
Heelflips
2
Backside Varial Flips
2
Fakie Kickflips
2
Fakie Heelflips
2
Fakie Varial Flips
2
Half-cab Kickflips
2
Backside 180 Kickflips
2
Frontside 180 No Complies
2
No Comply Impossibles
2
Frontside 360 Ollies
2
Fakie Frontside 180 No Complies
2
Frontside 360 No Complies
2
Fakie Frontside 360 Ollies
2

Another photo from the studio lot. I’ve written over and over how these lots are each like skate parks. This beautiful red curb going down a hill looks like it has never been skated!

The verdict
While I enjoyed the new stuff and the no comply practice of the new drill set 2.1, it felt weird only doing 2 of each thing, like it wouldn’t be enough. Also, because I was so tired from so many long days and late nights, my skating was off. Took me 40 minutes to do this set. During Tre flip practice I learned but didn’t land. That’s fine.

Note on the 360s: I don’t usually go a full 360 unless I’m going off of something, like a curb or sidewalk hip. In these drills however, I am working toward getting that ability, everywhere. So I count it when I land it close to 300 degrees, and when I add that nice feeling front axle pivot that I learned from Aaron Kyro. Just saying.

Ugh, night off
I was super dead exhausted all day today, to the point of not being productive and fearing a cold due to a low immune system. So after work and running around and dinner, I stayed in. Super hard to do. Makes the wife happy though. Happy wife, happy life. Otherwise it would’ve been another 11pm or later session. I want it, but I had to play it responsible. This challenge of juggling priorities is just another aspect of being an adult relearning to skateboard. Almost as hard of the tre flips. For now.

I’ll be pissed if I don’t get to skate tomorrow. That’ll be another challenge of priorities. I was invited by some of the stand-up comedy brass of Hollywood to backstage at their show. These are my peers actually, and I have fallen away temporarily (due to my addiction to skateboarding for sure), but I need to keep my self in the game, so I might have to go suffer through another stand-up comics set. Good news is, the comedy club is right down the street from a bright street light and different manual pad I’ve scoped out in the past!

First ever kickflip into a curb trick! (Backside flip into 5-0 axle stall).

Flipping backside into a back truck axle stall!

Saturday October 26
Ridiculous that I’ve been too busy to write notes about my session 4 days ago. Way too much work, way too much adult stuff. That’s pretty much always the challenge for many adults relearning to skateboard.

Duration: Two hours
Location: Fairfax Middle School. Flat ground and manual pad.

Since my good phone was stolen months ago I haven’t been able to record myself skating. No stills grabbed. Decided to bust out the old camcorder, set up the tripod and record a couple clips. On the phone it’s just two steps, a few minutes, but on the camcorder there’s like 10 steps and adds about an hour. Hence the rarity.

Above: Fakie varial flip

Drills
I did a Complete Drill Set 2.0. About to switch this up, add tricks and maybe reduce the makes to 2 per trick. Want to keep it fresh and develop but also have more time for new trick and practice sets at the end. Have been working on doing everything higher and cleaner.

Above: Halfcab kickflip

Practice sets
For some works in progress I track attempts and makes, for other stuff I stubbornly commit to landing 3 each, regardless the make rate based on percentages.

Tre flip practice
Attempts: 25. Makes: 0.
Fronside flip practice
Attempts: 10. Makes: 0
Fakie varial flips
3
No Comply impossibles
3
Fakie 180 frontside no complies
3

Above: No comply impossibe

Breakthrough to first kickflip into a curb trick
So this was huge for me. I’ve repeatedly mentioned how much I craved to flip into something on a curb. Anything. All previous attempts were horrible. However, while practicing 180 backside kickflips I kept noticing that my board consistently would go about 110 degrees of the 180 after flipping properly. I’ve since made adjustments to get them around 180, but in the meanwhile I took advantage of my reliable 110 degree backside flip. I decided to try to do it into a backside tailslide or tailstall. I came very close numerous times. However, as a bi-product I learned that it is way easier to do the flip into a rear axle stall. Looks and feels great. Did about 6 of them. Am still determined to nail the backside flip into a backside tailslide.
If it wasn’t for yoga there is no way in the world I’d still be healthy enough to skate!

First time landing fakie heelflips

Today
Am grateful for consistent practice. Even if I have to miss every other day, or am 2 on, 1 off, or 1 on, 2 off. Tonight it felt like the board was a lever, very easy to lift and flip. It isn’t always like that. As I’ve written recently, sometimes I’m rusty as hell for the first 20 minutes of each session.

Location: Rite Aid Parking Lot, Los Feliz
Duration: 80 minutes

Drill Sets:
Managed a Complete Drill Set 2.0. Maybe one of my last, as I’ll be upgrading to a 2.1 soon. To include new things I’ve pretty much got down.
Everything was pretty smooth tonight. No hangups. Nollies are easily my weakest trick. Eventually they will be feautured as one of my practice sets.

Beautiful marble. Surprised the skate stoppers are still on it.

Practice Sets
Tre Flips
50 attempts, 3 makes! Make rate: 6%
Slow and steady, tons of failure, it will pay off. Tonight felt amazing. Total focus on micro steps and timing within them. Total awareness of every muscle, motion and direction. Right now it’s about the synchronicity of the front and back foot. Have gotten to the point where the 360 scoop is coming more natural, so it’s time to focus on the next step.

Frontside flips
Recently learned it’s not cool to call the 180 frontside kickflips. Attempts: 25. Makes: 5! Make rate: 20%
Focused on a higher cleaner ollie to start with. Super fun.

Marble ledge, long protected by these stoppers.

The following tricks are incubating for  a drill set:

Fakie Varial Flips
3 makes

No Comply Impossible
3 makes

First fakie heelflips
3 makes
The heelflips felt so good, so many days in a row, I decided to seize the moment and try them fakie. Within a few minutes I landed 3 beautiful fakie heelflips first ever for me!

Saw another skater pass by here the other night. He was regular footed, like me, approached this curb, did a slappie (backside) on the top lit flat part, and rode it all the way down around the curved part. It was beautiful!

Tomorrow
16+ hour day days, the next two in a row. 5 hours sleep! 2 jobs. If I can skate I will! Bummer if I don’t, but to be Zen and defeatest at the same time: It is what it is.

 

 

Text

Killer session. Huge inspiration from past blog posts.

I was irrationally excited to return to the Rite Aid in Los Feliz. I skated over 100 hours there over the summer – I estimate, and didn’t know I’d return.

The blog has paid off!
The other day I reread the first couple months of this blog (January and February, 2013. Nine months ago). Holy shit it blew my mind to see the struggle, patience and growth.

Some things haven’t changed. I’m still totally stoked to learn. Still suck at transition, still not ready, or too chicken, for rails, or anything too big or too fast. Already been injured enough. Still prefer to skate alone at night. While I love it and blog it, skating is a very private thing otherwise. Maybe it’s that I just don’t skate well with other folks around, and I’m a hard critic. Or I’m not used to the pads yet, make me feel like a leper.

Those posts reminded me not to take anything for granted.

When I first started relearning to skateboard, I could ollie, 180 frontside ollie, shovit (not popshovit), nollie-popshovit (don’t ask me why). That’s it. That was about last September. However, I count my real “start again” date as the end of October because until then I was borrowing a mix-matched old set up: 7.5 board, no tail, with 7.75 trucks, no bushings, and 20 year old bomber wheels. On October 20 last year I got an 8″ deck, and it took until the beginning of November for me to afford the right size trucks and wheels.

Little ledge across the street from my business on Melrose Avenue. These cool street obstacles are everywhere!

The thrilling struggle, and more to come!
My drills and practice sets, now very long and variable, used to consist of only  “100 popshovit attempts. Zero makes. 100 kickflip attempts, 1 make.” Over and over. Then it grew. I learned Kickflips by the middle of Febrary, but they were old 80s style, not conducive to grow upon. (Side and downkicking the front foot). I had them up to about a 75% make rate before I realized I had to start over with a brand new foot action. At the end of February I was down again to a 0% make rate. Hundreds and hundreds of attempts. Varial flips, weeks of zero makes, hundreds of attempts. Then there would be one landing of one of the tricks. And then not again for a couple of weeks. Just hundreds of non-makes while seriously trying.

I wish to put the same amount of patience and persistence into my struggle with tre flips, and to learn how to incorporate all these tricks into curb tricks, grinds and slides, and eventually get them up onto ledges. After I round out my catalogue of all these flips tricks, I have a life ahead of me to get them smooth, with cool combinations. But first, get that tre!

The Practice
Last night was my first night staying back up in Los Feliz. It was an unexpected return to an old ‘hood where I skated nightly over the summer. I knew exactly where to go: Rite Aid. Smooth lot. Well lit, nobody cares. I’ve been putting in very full days working on our business, so it was a no brainer reward for me to go skating.

Duration: 80 minutes.

Pros: Great skate spot. Plus I’d watched an awesome tre support video, and it gave me some encouragement to examine tres with a different perspective.Cons: No cons. Well, I’d have loved a manual pad, but I could skate for a decade on flat ground and not get bored.

Drills
I managed to practice a Complete Drill Set 2.0. Everything was super smooth, and it went down in record time: 30 minutes. Took 10 tries to get my first heelflip, but then I got 3 makes consecutively, each one high and tight. Got the 180 backside flips and half cab kickflips with only a few extra attempts each. The nollies and frontside 360 ollies took the longest, but they are progressing. Also goofed around with nose manuals.

In an earlier post I actually made a chart of my varial flip progress! How geeky and encouraging for tres!

Practice Sets
These are developing and changing. Eventually they’ll get incorporated into a different Drill set. It would be so long I’d have to only do 2 makes of everything. I can’t believe how much I just kept banging out sets of 3 of so much super fun skating. The only thing I didn’t do was 360 non complies. I tried for about 5 minutes at the end, but I ran out of time. I was honing back in on it after not really doing those since the late spring.

Below, in some cases I just did 3 makes instead of tracking it based on percent. Just like with drills. The sets of 25 are for my weakest links.

Tre Flips
25 attempts, 1 make. Make rate: 4%

180 Frontside kickflips
25 attempts, 1 make. Make rate: 4%

No Comply Impossible
3 makes

180 Frontside No comply
3 makes

Fakie 180 Frontside No comply
3 makes

Fakie 360 Frontside Ollies
3 (Some were 270+ rotation, with a revert. Still learning).

Fakie Varial Flips
3 makes

Fakie Tre Flips
10 attempts. Zero makes. After I felt like I had a breakthrough with the technical side of tre flips, I thought I would just see what it felt like fake. To my great surprise, it was super feasible! 3 out of 10 made the complete rotation and spin and ended up exactly where it needed to be. I just wasn’t high enough in the air to catch them, I didn’t expect them to even be there! A few other attempts where in the right neighborhood. I don’t know if I’ll commit to learning these until after I get tres down rolling forward. However, it will be fun to play with them from time to time.

Notes
1. Was super stoked to land that one tre flip. It’s the first one I’ve landed since the end of August. Now that I’m getting heelflips down, and now that my living and working situation is getting into a better routine, I can focus again on tres. I want to give super credit to the skate support video I saw on YouTube, by slowmomike. The part of this video that helped me the most was where he says to scoop and kind of kick the board with the back foot, to go almost straight up! Yeah he showed it going around in the backside direction, but he made it seem as though he was trying to kick it under toward where the nose was at the beginning of the trick. Meanwhile the nose rises almost to a vertical position while the front foot gives it a full slide. Good video. I had quite a few attempts that came close because of it. Super helpful tre flip video.

Looking back, looking forward

Back again, BOA at Fairfax and Melrose

Today
Got in a tight 80 minutes while my wife taught class. Third practice in a row wherein I couldn’t believe I was skating on such tired legs and busy mind. Started slow and then BOOM, I was into it, 100% focused and energized.

Drills
Managed to get in a complete drill set 2.0. The nollies and backside 180 kickflips remain the weakest. Today noticed an improvement in my backside 180s as well as nollies. Everything really.

Practice sets
Tre flips
0-25. Some attempts got around correctly and I caught them with one foot. Promissing.
Frontside 180 Kickflips
2-23: Make rate 8%.
No Comply Impossible
2-23. Make rate 8%
Fakie Varial Flips
5-20. 20% Make rate.

3rd or fourth tube of shoe goo. Same shoes.Got black this time.

I reread my first 15 blog entries today. Inspires me for the future. Big time. I’ll write more specifics about it next time!

New trick: Fakie 180 frontside no comply

Yesterday
After a long day of working (painting our new business space), if my wife decides to go swimming, it is always a good cue for me to go skating. First time skating in two night. So, 48 hours off. Hard to do.

The Practice
Location: Fairfax High School. Hollywood.
Duration: 1 hour
Pros: Hassle free. Plus, Ioved the way I pared down my drill sets to be more realistic and allow more time for other practice.
Cons: For the first 40 minutes I was in my plan B spot. Plan A is the manual pad, but I had to wait till traffic left. Plan B (not to be confused with the board company) is good too, just not as well lit.

This photo and the next 2 are all from the same spot, sort of a panoramic. This is my second choice of spots at Fairfax high. This faces a 9″ waxed curb.

Drills: This was my first time doing a new version of my Complete Drill set. I had added rolling heelflips and fakie 180 frontside ollies. I also reduced backside 180s and kickflips to 3 makes each, so that it is uniform with the rest of my drills. Of course I don’t feel like I’m done yet giving extreme focus on kickflips and backside 180s, but it was time to shorten the amount of makes so I can also still have time to work on other things. More philosophy on this another day. So last night I did my first Complete Drill Set 2.0

Second of 3 photos from my secondary spot at Fairfax high. Facing a slightly downhill runway for manuals.

Rolling Heelflip! Added to drills? What?! My fight with heelflips
The beauty of reducing my drills gave me time to work on heelflips at the end. Didn’t think I’d be adding these to the new Drill Set 2.0, especially not while rolling. I’ve had a long battle with heelflips. Back in July I was landing about 3% while rolling, but it was super frustrating. Then I stopped trying rolling but had the same poor results with stationary. Couldn’t get it to flip right. So for two or three weeks I just practiced flipping it while stationary, landing it with one foot, also practiced just dragging my foot in the right direction. After a few weeks of that, I went back to trying to land them stationary. Had a breakthrough around the end of August, landing 13%. The very next session I landed 80%. Stationary. My next session was not as magical but still I was up to around 50% with heelflips.

Heelflips (and tres) on hold
But then, as my blogs notes, September was filled with super survival mode, and my skate time was cut down by about 75%. I’d had a quite irresponsible summer. 2 to 3 hours sessions every day. Sometimes more. Come September it was like, “Goodbye”, and I only got to skate like 10 times, and often only for an hour, and often only doing manual practice due to not being in an ideal situation to build up a sweat. My progress on heelfips and tres was stopped, and then I lost what I’d gained.

Third picture from same stationary location, my secondary spot at Fairfax. Looks darker than it was. This is my slappie curb.

Back at the heelflips
About a week ago, once life started opening up a precious little more time for me (about an hour every other night, sometimes two nights in a row), I started to play with heelflips again but I’d lost them. Completely. Ugh. So I’ ve been rebuilding with stationary “motion only” foot drags and also flipping the board and catching it with one foot. This is why I didn’t think I’d be adding heelflips to my new drill set.

Last night when I had about 15 minutes to spare after the rest of the drill set, I did all the warm up for heel flips (stationary foot drag, one foot landings). Couldn’t even land an actual heelflip while stationary. It was at that moment, almost giving up again, that I went through a checklist of all the body dynamics from my breakthrough a couple months ago. (Can’t really describe it. The key for me is to center my body over the bolts, put my back foot toward the heelside of the tail, and move the board more like a see-saw moving into the ollie). Then I thought what the hell and pushed off, got rolling and…Boom, boom, boom! Landing 3 rolling heelflips almost back to back. Nice ones too.

I don’t think I’m out of the dark yet. These subtle yet important dynamics come and go for me. However, I feel good and stubborn enough to include it in my Drill Set 2.0, so at least I’ll work on it each night if I have the time.

I always carry this nylon back when I skate to nearby spots. It contains my pads, wax, skate key, and water.

New Trick: Fakie 180 frontside no comply
The other night when I was trying fakie frontside 180s for the first time since childhood, my front foot came off when I had too much speed. This gave me the idea that this trick would be super easy to do as a no comply. I was right. Also, I cannot begin to describe how fun it is.

Last might I decided to try it. Within 3 minutes of trying, I was landing these fakie 180 frontside no complies. Part of what makes it so fun is the way the board floats up and kind of sticks to the foot during the momentum of the turn around.

Fakie and Flipping Limitations

I don’t really have the board control, or more like I don’t have the mental control to time anything fakie over or onto an obstacle or even off a curb. I also can’t yet kickflip, or anything-flip into a grind. I write this now, here, because I’d love to be able to actually do some of these flatground tricks over, up onto or off of things. Not now though. I can dream. Soon.

Kickflip Breakthrough; Heelflip Revelation

Getting padded up in the only slice of shade in the best nearest parking lot. I still resent the pads, really despise them, but at the same time I appreciate how they take a HUGE beating every day.

Today

Drills

Regular Ollies:
5
Fakie Ollies
5
180 Backside Ollies
10
Backside Half-cabs
5
Backside Popshovits
5
Frontside Popshovits
5
Kickflips
25
Backside Varial Flips
5

The above fun and practice took 34 minutes, plus a few breaks. Wasn’t rushing, but that’s record time. Yesterday I was obsessed and overthinking my mechanical breakdown and it took over an hour just to do 50 kickflips without having two in a row where it skyrockets and the back tail hits the ground.
Today, with a new relaxed approach and an adjustment on my foot placement, I did almost all 25 kickflips consecutively. Each high, straight and awesome. It was the opposite of yesterday, but I’m grateful for yesterday’s thorough trial and error.

An artified still of yesterday's backside ollie into backside tailslide.

New trick practice

Tre Flips
50 attempts, zero makes. I loved this practice regardless the again zero. Based on what I learned today about my kickflips, I made much needed changes to my front foot placement and motions. All of a sudden, way more control. Came very close numerous times.

Heelflips
Attempts: 50; Makes: 2; Make rate: 4%

Observations

1. Regarding Kickflips:
I’m quoting something I wrote today about my notes on yesterday’s very obsessive practice:
“I learned that I was throwing off my timing and pop in so many ways because I was trying to speed up the flick by 25% or try to force the Ollie higher to allow more rotation time. But then I realized I don’t have to speed up or do any of that, I only needed to move my front foot up closer to, even overlapping, the front bolts! Make the journey of the foot shorter, and use the board more like a lever and bang! Way easier.”
So that’s what I observed today. I did 25 quality, high, tight, rolling, even height, non-skyrocketing kickflips, almost consecutively.
It was a breakthrough that spilled over immediately into my following tre and Kickflip Practice.
That’s not to say that my timing won’t ever be off in the future, but I feel like I finally eradicated the old 80s habit of flicking down or flat across. The last vestige of this was my starting placement of my front foot: I cheated it back too far back toward the middle of the deck. This made the distance to the nose too far for the quick flip while getting even height. Only way I could get in the complete flip before while putting my front foot so far back, was to flick down or flat across. That was before. Now with the front foot further forward I can keep more leverage over the center of the board and minimize the quickness of the front foot action. For anything. Late flips even!
I realized that I don’t need to scoot my foot back to get extra power during my Ollie. The boards are so light and I’m so much stronger than when I was kid. The shape of the nose adds to the ease of getting height.
That said, I do also know that once I’m better at all this, I can also learn how to do it all with my foot back further for more power.

To break up my unusually lengthy post, here is a very little grindable curbed corner. On Western just south of Franklin.

2. Regarding Heelflips: Just like how my Kickflip adjustment immediately gave me more control in my tre flip attempts – very promising – so also it gave me a new vision for heelflips. The skateboard is only a lever.
I remembered, “pop an Ollie, do a trick.”
Over the last eight or nine days, I landed only a few heelflips, and I kept playing with the mechanics, learning by trial and error. I watched many different heelflip how to videos on YouTube, a few of them directly conflicting with each other. I’d decided to try a middle path approach to the conflicting lessons, and then also found the following VERY HELPFUL VIDEO. That video really very much was a middle path approach. And today, it worked quite well for me.
With all of this I can play and practice patiently FOREVER as long as I know I’m doing it correctly. The thing I’m thrilled about today is that now I’ve settled on the correct method, and from here on out it’s less analyzing and more feeling. I’ll analyse it when the dynamics get out of proportion, but that’ll be just to get it back to what I’ve definitively learned.
Note: back in February after my round of vertigo I theorized in this blog that the above is what I needed to incorporate. It took time to bring it into muscle memory and weed out old 80s habits that are tied in, I.e the power Ollie.
During the first 12 heelflip attempts today I just accidentally ollied high without even getting the heel spin in there. It was like a cool, heel based Ollie. Loftiness was missing from some of my other ways of trying.
I landed number 13, and another one later. Most of the rest of my attempts were nice Ollies and either close to being makes, or they were all good except my heel flip was either too hard or too slow and it would either over or under spin. But in place. After air. Very promising.
The middle path foot placement I’ve learned to stay with after hours and hours of experimenting:
Front foot about an inch or less below the front truck bolts, at about a 30° angle, with only my small toe and part of second toe hanging off the front edge of the deck.
For the motion, as soon as the lever action of the ollie gets to its height, I start to roll my front foot up toward the scoop of the nose. I start by dragging the widest part of my front outer foot, and as it moves up toward the nose I drag it back toward the heel (meaning I’m pushing the foot more off the front edge of the deck), and then when the heel gets to the scoop of the nose I flick my foot out.
Watch the vid. What was confusing me was specific, opposing instructions and vagueness that is now clarified.

Tomorrow
I’m probably working all day, on a tv show. However, the location of crew parking is one of the famous Santa Monica middle schools wherein exist the best banks and ditches. I’m bringing my board and hoping to skate.

These are just some of the joys, struggles and revelations -and analyzing -of this adult relearning how to skateboard.

First heelflip! Rainy day, plan b.

New trick as of a couple days ago. Front shove.

Today
Worked on a business plan for much of the day, so while my wife teaches tonight, this adult relearning how to skateboard got away fair and square to bliss out.

Duration
2 hours, minus catching my breath.

Location
Bancroft Middle School. It looked like rain so plan b was do this while my wife taught class.

Pros
1. EVERYTHING. No cops, no security guards, no other skaters, no bumps or cracks or rocks, smooth and flat, no direct sun, plenty of light plus artificial light. Plenty of time to practice it all.

Cons
1. Although I had two hours, I could’ve used a couple more hours. I could’ve landed some tres.

Drills
(All drills completed rolling unless started otherwise)

Completed at least ten quality makes of the following:
Backside Popshovits
180 Backside Ollies
Fakie Ollies
Half-Cabs
Frontside Popshovits
Backside Varial Flips

And because I want to get these to stop being rockets (nose higher):

Kickflips
25 makes.

New trick practice
(Notice how three days in I’m so comfortable with front shoves, they’re already in the strait drills category).

Heelflips
50 attempts. 1 make! First make! It was on my 50th attempt too, and I was like, “I am going to land this!”.
2% make rate.

Tre Flip Practice
I’ve landed these stationary before, but not since before two foot injuries, and not in a long time. Never yet while rolling. Coming very close.
Attempts: 50; Makes: 0.
More than ever they are spinning cleanly 360, just not with the flip always. Landed one unintentional 360 Popshovits. More and more are getting the flip right too. Ran out of time.

It started raining, so I skated here. Could've skated the picnic tables, in the school yard, but my focus is just the basics.

Observations
1. Kickflips: gotta keep making sure to flick the foot up and out. Sometimes I nail it correctly, and when I do it feels awesome. I keep cutting them short, still keep doing vestige of the old 80s kick down. Bad. Very bad.
2. Heelflips. Landed my first heelflip! Aside from the pop/flick timing and feeling out the right foot placement, my #1 need is to learn not to do the heel version of what I just listed as my recurring bad habit with kickflips. Gotta flick it up and not. Not across or down.
3. Tre Flips. There’s quite a lot going on in there, and I need to synchronize two separate new motions, the spin and the flip. Can do them both correctly sometimes, just haven’t managed to merge them on the right proportions. Soon!
4. Front shoves are super fun! Super stoked on learning them. Can’t wait to do front shove kickflips and front shove heelflips.
5. Learned via a YouTube skate support video that a backside fakie 180 Ollie IS a half cab. Been doing them for a few weeks, retained them from childhood, so they returned with my general board control, didn’t know that’s what they were called though. Meanwhile I kept being like, “what’s a half cab?”.

Making changes makes temporary suck

Playing

Today
Worked on the set of one of my favorite shows for the last day of taping! Didn’t work on my new screenplay or stand-up. I skated over a mile round trip to the nearest flat, smooth, lit  skate spot in a non residential area (a super drag compared to my old place).
Got kicked out of the first place by security.
In the end I skate commuted for over thirty minutes, and only actually skated in the lot for 30.

A set of skateable rails in my hood, at Western and Hollywood. Not skateable by me tho! Still working on ledges.

Drills
Rolling Popshovits
10 makes
Backside 180s
10 makes. Was fun, was work.
Rolling Kickflips
25 makes.
Did not come easy. I have realized that I kick the board out or even down a bit in my flick, and not up. It limits the height of my kickflips. So I’ve been working on really kicking it. This makes me consciously change my center of balance and sometimes throw me off. All my timing in transit.
I also did a lot of Ollie thuds, not hitting the tail fast or clean or hard enough.
Varial Flips
5 makes. I ran out of time!
I was sweating super hard, was soaked, and my pads took a serious beating. I was alone between a Valvoline and Pollo Loco.

New ‘hood, finally finding spots

Assortment of skate spots within ten minutes of my long housesitting gig.

Today
In light of the extreme anti-skate sentiments at my house, I managed to get away and skate, do my drills. Spent about 25 minutes skating around finding where to practice, and about 45 minutes working on the below standard set:

Drills
Ten makes of the following.
Rolling Popshovits
Stationary Kickflips
Varial Flips

And because kickflips are a huge priority:

Rolling Kickflips
25 quality makes.

It’s all paying off with the kickflips! Getting higher and tighter. Still I have some serious progress to make, but all is coming. Just need to stay productive in other areas to earn money and stave off the wife whom wants to throw out my deck.

Am tight on time at this very moment. I’ll have to describe the above pictured skate spots in more detail later.

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